The Maine Dream Team-up Project: Tom Madden

Madden Beverage was founded in December 2003 and carries over 850 craft beers from all corners of the globe. Madden Beverage is a family run business that is staffed with enthusiastic and knowledgeable hop-heads. They offer mixed six packs, kegging equipment, home brewing supplies, and bring in all the limited release products they can get our hands on. Join them for product tastings 3 times a month throughout the summer. For more information, visit http://www.maddenbeverage.com or www.facebook.com/maddenbeverage

We are unbelievably fortunate to have such a thriving and prolific beer drinking community in Maine. Our desire for great craft beer has helped cultivate the inundation of new breweries that have gone on to make Maine a nationwide destination for craft beer. But not only do we like to drink beer that tastes great, we also like to drink beer that has a story, a purpose, or is the result of a unique and creative inspiration. When first considering the collaborations I would like to see come out of Maine, I had a hard time pairing up brewers without also dreaming up possibilities of what they may create together, so I included these ideas as well.

There are very few notable beer styles currently missing from the Maine beer scene. I’m proud that we have such a diverse and thriving craft beer culture, but the one style I have more rarely bumped into is the imperial stout. Many years ago, my gateway into the craft beer world was through dark beer so this is a category I get especially excited to find. Luckily, two Maine breweries that have recently released high quality imperial stouts are Marshall Wharf + Banded Horn. My hope with this collaboration is that they would be willing to take this style one step further. I’d like to see these two pair up their Sexy Chaos (Marshall Wharf) and The Mountain (Banded Horn) to try their hand at one of the viscous, hair-on-your-chest; barrel aged imperial stouts that commonly attract cult-like attention. Hopefully, Maine would have a product that can be rallied around like many of the other nationwide festival-style release parties this style seems to produce. Three Floyd’s Dark Lord Day (April 26th, Cigar City’s Hunahpu’s Day (March 8th) and Founder’s release of Kentucky Breakfast Stout (which has evolved into the entire week of March 18-22nd) bring out the most excitable craft beer fans to celebrate such an influential style and, with enough luck, we’d have a local barrel aged monster to line up for once a year.

In an age where industrial parks have become the typical homestead for production brewing, there are a few notable breweries that still represent that beer is an agricultural product. As much as I love to see brewing start-ups find their footing by any means necessary, there is something to be said about the ones that gain their traction off the beaten path and in a more traditional brewery setting. Few breweries offer a better example than Oxbow + Hill Farmstead, who get the nod for this collaboration. Both breweries have a knack for amending traditional farmhouse styles with creative twists and I’d love to see how they could transform a traditional French/Belgian saison style into an exciting, Americanized version. Since both breweries are experienced with modern flavoring hops and have produced a number of beers with brettanomyces yeast, I would like to see these incorporated in the result. Gentle citrusy hop flavor and touch of sour would make for an easy drinking beer that would go down easy all summer long.

Question 3: What would your Maine + International Brewery team up look like?

Being Maine’s brewery who wears their Belgian style influence like a badge of honor, it’s easy to peg Allagash for an international collaboration. When dreaming of an all-star European collaborative counterpart, the brewery that comes immediately to mind is Westvleteren. Westvleteren produces what is commonly regarded in the US as Belgium’s best Quad with Westvleteren 12. Most importantly, an Allagash + Westvleteren collaboration is the ideal partnership because it is entirely unlikely. The Trappist Abbey of Saint Sixtus which produces the Westvleteren beers only produces as much beer as is required to run the monastery and thus demand severely outweighs supply, making it incredibly difficult to purchase outside of Belgium. Nevertheless, after witnessing Allagash’s immense talent for brewing Belgian style beers, I’d like to see them honor their roots by collaborating with an historical Trappist monastery from Belgium. It would be easy to picture this partnership producing a beer that is exemplary for its style, and thus a toast to Belgian style beers of past and present.

Question 4: Free for all! Anything goes here as long as there is 1 Maine brewery involved.

In an age where hoppiness is happiness, I can’t help but acknowledge the wave of resinous Imperial IPAs that are becoming the most sought after beers in America. I’m curious to see what would happen if we brought together the some of the greatest minds in the world of Double IPAs. Would it be possible to put together a pair of IPA innovators to brew something better than what they have already proven they can produce individually? I for one hope to believe that we have not yet witnessed the apex of flavorful Double IPAs and if there were a pair that could again raise that bar I have to believe it would be Maine Beer Company + The Alchemist. Anyone with a serious appetite for palate-shocking IPAs has made the pilgrimage to Burlington for a chance at scoring some Heady Topper and according to the rating community on BeerAdvocate.com; it is currently the best beer in the world. Pair that with the prominent IPAs coming out of Maine Beer Company and we just might be on to something. Maine Beer Company hasn’t released their Dinner Double IPA on a production scale yet but it is a phenomenal example of the style, plus they have already flexed their firepower with Lunch IPA, so it seems like a foolproof pairing. My hope with this collaboration is that these two could put their heads together to brew a Double/Imperial IPA that again pushes the envelope and keeps us all believing that though it seems everything has already been done, there is still much more to come in the world of craft beer.